weeSpring’s co-founder explains what it took to get into über-competitive TechStars.

By Allyson Downey (CEO & Co-founder, weeSpring)

A year ago, when weeSpring was just an idea sketched out on a couple PowerPoint slides, a friend suggested we apply to this thing called TechStars – a world-class accelerator that helps startups get their rocketship off the launchpad. The stats post-TechStars were impressive, to say the least: companies that have been through the program go on to raise an average of $1.5M in venture funding. The catch? Fewer than 1% of applicants are accepted. At the time, it felt like winning an Oscar might be easier.

Cindy Gallop’s site “If We Ran The World” encourages members to tap into great intentions and get help to follow through. Breaking down big goals into “microactions” that members can accomplish to chip away at audacious goals.

By 2018, women-owned businesses in the U.S. will generate a third of new jobs.

By Leah Eichler (Contributing Writer, Femme-O-Nomics)

When I decided to leave the world of the gainfully employed to launch my own company, I may have suffered from a selective attention span.

To this day, I struggle to see anything but entrepreneurial success stories and many of them include women, such as Sara Blakely, the owner of Spanx, a company valued at around $1 billion. Other examples include cosmetic discovery service Birchbox, co-founded by Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, Rent the Runway, the couture rental site co-founded

Empowering women in business, startups mixing fashion and feminism are celebrating a renaissance.

By Tara Hunt (Co-Founder & CEO, Buyosphere)

Many of those not in the know think of fashion as a trap for women. Uncomfortable shoes. Impossible body images. Shallow spendy status symbols. Magazine layouts of size zero 6 foot tall women juxtaposed with an ad for weight loss.

There is a large part of fashion that I grapple with that doesn’t leave me feeling very empowered. There is an incredibly empowering side of fashion: self-expression. Though I romanticize the historical cuts, I couldn’t think of a better time to live in where I have all of the tools available for me to express

The dawn of subscription commerce has spawned a number of startups in technology including Birchbox, Kiwi Crate, Babbaco and many others.

Citrus Lane is one of the latest startups to tackle the model, which sends a box of kiddie goodies to members each month. The startup is focused on parents as the client, and aims to help moms and dads discover interesting and ‘Best Of’ products for those expecting babies, as well as for newborns to three-year-olds.

A former investment banker, entrepreneur Alice Wang watched her extended family grow in size with the arrival of three babies. She found it inspiring to see how the families experienced parenthood, and subsequently, how quickly the children got sick of toys.

She thought there had to be a better way to test toys with the child and provide some educational value to the experience.

This was the spark that launched her startup Spark Box, a toy rental company providing an eco-friendly way for parents

Subscription services have been around for more than a century. Generations before us were the first to enjoy subscriptions to magazines, newspapers, and more. As a kid, I even remember being forced to go door-to-door to sell subscriptions for wrapping paper. (Side note: Who really needs a monthly subscription to wrapping paper?)

Only in the past several years has our friend, the Internet, disrupted the traditional subscription model of the media monoliths, forcing them to think about new ways to offer online subscriptions as well as free versions of their content.

These are just a few of the high-profile, high-growth startups that have been started by Harvard Business School women.

Despite the widespread belief in today’s tech monoculture that MBAs do not make good entrepreneurs, I’ve heard several investors say “I wouldn’t bet against any HBS women founders,” based on the success of those listed above.

What do Tumblr and Gilt Groupe have in common? How about Kickstarter and Foursquare? They are a few of 400 tech startups, many of which have been funded in New York City in the last two years. 31 health care companies, 37 finance startups, and 145 shopping and advertising startups are buttressing existing NYC industries. They’re sharing the space with 225 consumer internet, enterprise software, and media and entertainment startups.

There is a startup hub forming within blocks of venture capital investors in Midtown

Birchbox announced today they raised $10.5M to continue product development and possibly branch into other verticals.

Birchbox was founded by Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, Harvard Business School grads (pictured).

Accel partner Theresia Gouw Ranzetta says, “The team has forged partnerships with some of the world’s leading cosmetic brands to give consumers a fun, monthly beauty sampling experience. We believe Birchbox has many opportunities for continued growth, and we look forward to aiding their success.”

Every time this happens, we at Women 2.0 put our heads together and come up with a handy list of women CTOs of tech startups for anyone who asks. From writers for magazines to conference organizations, we all want to know — where are the technical women of startups? Why are they not more frequently featured on magazine covers and quoted in newspapers?

No more excuses. Let’s get these technical women leaders exposure.

Female Startup Founders – Who Are Also CTOs:

Cathy Edwards (Co-Founder & CTO, Chomp)Chomp‘s proprietary algorithm learns the functions and topics of apps helps you find the apps you want. Chomp was acquired by Apple in February 2012. Follow her on Twitter at @cathye.

Sandy Jen (Co-Founder & CTO, Meebo)
A co-founder of Meebo, Sandy is also their CTO. Google acquired Meebo for a rumored $100M in June 2012. Follow her on Twitter at @meebosandy.

Jenny Chen (Co-Founder & CTO, Wanderable)
After working at Amazon Web Services for over five years, Jenny Chen co-founded Wanderable to make wedding registries more fun for travel lovers. Follow her on Twitter at @phethyr.

Shilpa Dalmia (Co-Founder & CTO, ActivityHero)
An engineer by profession and a parent at heart, Shilpa Dalmia started ActivityHero to help parents select activities for their kids. Follow her on Twitter at @shilpa_dalmia.

Julia Grace (Co-Founder & CTO, WeddingLovely)
After earning two degrees in computer science, Julia Grace spent 4 years at IBM Research, ran product at a startup then co-founded WeddingLovely. Follow her on Twitter at @jewelia.

Bryn McCoy (Co-Founder & CTO, Citizen Made)
After building innovative software for the likes of IBM and BMW, hacker and designer Bryn McCoy co-founded Citizen Made in Chicago. Follow her on Twitter at @brynmccoy.

Notable Technical Women Leaders At Startups:

Niniane Wang (CTO, Minted)
Niniane currently leads the engineering team at Minted, having 11 years of experience at Google and Microsoft. Follow her on Twitter at @niniane and follow her startup at @minted.

Liz Crawford (VP Engineering, Birchbox)
Liz is currently VP of E at Birchbox. Previously, she co-founded and served as CTO of Aprizi. Follow her on Twitter at @liscrawford and follow her startup at @birchbox.

Beth Marcus (Founder & CEO, Playrific)
Beth founded and served as CEO for startups, most notably EXOS, which was VC-backed and sold to Microsoft in 1996. She served as CTO at Zeemote. Follow her on Twitter at @startupdoc.

Ning Ning (VP Engineering, Perfect Market)
Ning Ning has served as VP of E at multiple tech startups, contributing to the sale of three of these to Salesforce, MEI and AskJeeves. Follow her startup at @PerfectMarket.

Daisy Itty (VP Engineering, DataStax)
Daisy has served as Director of Engineering of Responsys, BlueRoads and Selectica where she was one of the first engineers. Follow her startup on Twitter at @datastax.

Kate Matsudaira (VP Engineering, SEOmoz)
Kate has been holding engineering positions of increasing responsibility, and currently runs engineering at SEOmoz. Follow her on Twitter at @katemats and her startup at @SEOmoz.

Meg Withgott (Co-Founder & CTO, Panafold)
Meg co-founded Panafold, the knowledge attraction company. She co-founded ePlanet, and led research at Xerox PARC, Interval and Sun Labs. Follow her on Twitter at @megwith.

Chiu-Ki Chan (Founder & Developer, Monkey Write)
After being a software engineer for over 6 years at Google and 2 startups, Chiu-ki Chan is working on Monkey Write. Follow her on Twitter at @chiuki.

Women With Technical Backgrounds But No Longer Hold Technical Titles:

Leah Busque (Founder & CEO, TaskRabbit)
To outsource errands, the efficiency-minded Leah Busque coded the first version of labor marketplace TaskRabbit in 2008. Follow her on Twitter at @labusque.

Leah Culver (Co-Founder, Grove)
Dveloper Leah Culver co-founded Pownce, which was by Six Apart in 2008. She’s now working on Grove. Follow her on Twitter at @leahculver.

Ayah Bdeir (Founder & Lead Engineer, littlebits)
Ayah created litteBits, an award-winning kit of pre-assembled circuits that snap together with tiny magnets. No soldering, no wiring, no programming. Follow Ayah on Twitter at @AyahBdeir.

Annie Chang (Co-Founder & Head of Products, LOLapps)
“Don’t be fooled by the name of her startup” warned Fast Company. Annie Chang co-founded LOLapps, which was acquired by 6waves in July 2011. Follow her on Twitter at @lolapps.

Dr. Vivienne Ming (Co-Founder, Chief Scientist & Executive Director, Socos)
Dr. Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist launching an edu-tech startup building cognitive analytics for the classroom. Follow her on Twitter at @neuraltheory and her startup at @socos_me.

Julie Yoo (Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Kyruus)
Julie built the first version of the company’s data mining platform. She leads the product team at Kyruus, which received $5.5M Series A in 2011. Follow her on Twitter at @julesyoo.

Chandini Ammineni (Co-Founder, ActivityHero)Chandini Ammineni build apps including one to help pregnant moms see the heartbeat of their babies on the iPhone, then stated ActivityHero. Follow her on Twitter at @ammineni.

Peggy Chang (Co-Founder, ActivityHero)
An engineer with an MBA, Peggy Chang led product management teams for Intuit, Charles Schwab and the LA Times before joining ActivityHero.

Erica Douglass (Founder & CEO, Whoosh Traffic)
Prior to Whoosh Traffic, Erica Douglass sold her web hosting company for $1.1M. She built everything (website to server hardware) from scratch. Follow her on Twitter at @ericabiz.